Analysis

A new biography of Charlie Chaplin, who died on Christmas Day 1977,
looks at his turbulent life and artistic genius.

Lenin reputedly once said that Charlie Chaplin was "the only man in the
world that I want to meet", according to Peter Ackroyd, the latest
biographer of the star of early movies. Lenin wasn’t the only one. In
1915, aged just 26 years old, Chaplin was "the most famous man in the
world", Ackroyd writes.

The reason for this unheralded success in the new mass entertainment
medium was Chaplin’s most famous on-screen character, the ‘Little
Fellow’ or the ‘Tramp’. A loveable rogue who cocked a snook at
authority, he was hugely popular with working-class audiences. "An
irrepressible optimism and jauntiness in ‘the cruel, cruel world’. He is
infinitely expressive, with almost every conceivable human emotion
passing over his face in quicksilver rapidity. He can be both coy and
malevolent, for example, at the same time. He is shabby and plaintive,
but unbowed; he is endlessly resourceful and adaptable; he is always
being impeded but never defeated; he is bowed but not broken", writes
Ackroyd.

Chaplin made dozens of films but today is chiefly remembered for silent
screen classics like The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931), and
later ‘talkies’ like Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940).
Yet, by the 1950s, Chaplin was a pariah in his adopted Hollywood and
exiled from the United States – the victim of cold war anti-communist
paranoia and persecution.

Born in 1889, Chaplin grew up in south London slum poverty. His
stepfather, a music hall artist, was soon absent and later drunk himself
to death. His mother, a singer, desperately tried to make ends meet, and
suffered mental decline, spending time in institutions. On occasions,
Charlie and his brother stayed with relatives, slept on park benches or
were forced into workhouses. He got money for food by dancing on street
corners. This led to his first professional roles. At nine he toured
with the Eight Lancashire Lads clog dancers. He went on to share the
bill with the comedian, Dan Leno. Chaplin emulated Leno’s stage persona,
painting his face white, wearing baggy trousers and large shoes, and
became world famous as the Little Tramp.

At 21, Chaplin went to America with Fred Karno’s touring show (Stan
Laurel was another of the troupe). Under Karno’s mentoring, Chaplin
showed his amazing talent for physical comedy. He played Chaplin the
Inebriate, which he based on his stepfather. He joined Mack Sennett’s
Keystone studio in California when they needed a quick replacement.
Within months, Chaplin was the biggest star for the studio most
remembered for its taking down of authority by the clownish antics of
the Keystone Cops.

The frenetic pace of work – Sennett made three films a week – was
enthusiastically adopted by Chaplin, a perfectionist, when he left to
direct his own films. Much to the frustration of his fellow actors, he
would reshoot scenes many times, even rebuilding sets, until satisfied
with the outcome. Manically writing, directing and even writing scores
for his movies, Chaplin was driven by character, plot, action and
narrative.

His second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), introduced the
character of the Little Tramp to cinema audiences, an instant and
outstanding success. "A working-class hero battling against the rich and
privileged", Ackroyd writes. In subsequent movies, the Tramp, beset by
ignominies and failures, nevertheless ends up jauntily walking away,
giving his audiences hope. During his formative film years, Chaplin
dealt bravely with many raw and often controversial subjects, from the
horrors of the first world war trenches to the plight of immigrants,
with wit and empathy.

Chaplin’s appeal went well beyond cinema. Visiting New York in the early
1920s, he "became acquainted with a group of soi-disant [self-styled]
socialist intellectuals… he talked politics and art and literature".
Chaplin’s politics found more overt expression in the 1930s, during the
great depression and the rise of fascism.

Modern Times

Modern Times brilliantly captures the alienation and exploitation of the
industrialised workplace. Chaplin’s character is literally caught up in
factory wheels and cogs. Unable to bear the production rate of the
factory anymore, Chaplin’s character has a breakdown and goes from
hospital to prison, to the misery of unemployment. In another iconic
scene, he stumbles to the front of an angry street demonstration, and
accidently finds himself at the head of striking workers. In The Great
Dictator, Chaplin unsparingly satirizes Hitler. This was a brave
decision given the supine attitude of much of the ruling elite and
Hollywood moguls towards the Nazi regime at that time.

Ackroyd argues that Chaplin’s troubled childhood meant he was hugely
ambitious, even ruthless, and possessed of huge energy. Despite his
great fame and wealth, fears of plummeting back into poverty and
succumbing to his mother’s mental health problems always battled within
Chaplin. His relations with women were difficult and volatile, with two
short-lived marriages. He faced public scandal and censure when his
wife, Joan Barry, took Chaplin to court over his relationship with
17-year-old Oona O’Neill (playwright Eugene O’Neill’s daughter).

In the atmosphere of the cold war, the American political right
exploited Chaplin’s personal life and ‘morals’, and his left-wing
politics, to undermine him. In 1947 he was investigated by the House
Un-American Activities Committee, led by the arch-anti-communist,
Senator Joseph McCarthy. Chaplin was attacked for supporting the Soviet
Union against Nazism during the second world war.

To his discredit, Chaplin justified Stalin’s "wonderful" purges,
claiming they "did away with Quislings and Lavals"
(Nazi-collaborationist politicians in Norway and the Vichy regime in
France during the war). But the purges and show trials were initially
aimed against the Old Bolsheviks, and in particular Leon Trotsky and the
Left Opposition, who fought for workers’ democracy in the Soviet Union.

Ackroyd quotes Chaplin’s friends saying the actor was a ‘parlour pink’,
who was "ready to assume socialist convictions without any attempt to
carry them out". Ackroyd asserts it is "better to say that he was a
libertarian with tendencies towards anarchism". Chaplin did "possess an
angry instinct against injustice and oppression: all his life he fought
against authoritarian control and domination".

As a result of McCarthy’s witch-hunt over 300 people were blacklisted
from working in the Hollywood studios. Chaplin was not blacklisted
directly but, while he was sailing to London for a visit in 1952, he was
informed that his re-entry visa to the USA had been revoked. Chaplin
lived the rest of his life in exile, mainly in Switzerland, and died on
Christmas day 1977.

Chaplin’s enduring hold on the popular imagination accounts for the
estimated 200 books on his life and work. Although Peter Ackroyd’s
compact biography cannot plumb the depths of his subject, it is an
unsparing, perceptive account of the brilliant artistry and life of
Chaplin, and his greatest creation, the Little Tramp, with whom the
masses identified and empathised.